


The Luminous Interval

by PoliticalPadmé (magnetgirl)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Mortis (Star Wars), Skywalker Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 08:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15837198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetgirl/pseuds/PoliticalPadm%C3%A9
Summary: Rey and Ben are called to the ethereal realm of Mortis





	The Luminous Interval

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Reylo Fanfiction Anthology _Two Solitudes That Meet_. My celestial body is [Mortis](https://www.starwars.com/databank/mortis), as introduced in _Star Wars: The Clone Wars_.

At the very edges of knowing, there is a place. Sometimes it is a ship, sometimes a bridge between spaces. It's been described as a corridor, and a lighthouse, and a carousel. But it's easiest to understand as a planet; a small planet that circles a binary star.

Ben wakes in a field of flowers. A warm breeze blows through his hair. Light surrounds him, and flows through him. It should be comforting, but it makes his skin crawl. He stands, instinctively reaches for his lightsaber, but it's missing. He balls his hand into a fist, raises to his full height, glowers at the unfamiliar trees, the grasses bending in the wind. He doesn't trust this place.

"Where are we?"

He spins at the voice, the familiar lilt that haunts his dreams. Rey stands just out of reach, eyes flickering around the space, as prepared to attack as he is. He frowns, starts to answer he doesn't recognize it either, but realizes her question is pitched somewhere else. A man stands to his left and her right, at the apex of an invisible triangle.

"Who are you?" he demands, fingers twitching with renewed desire for his weapon.

"You may call me the Father."

Rey and Ben both tense at the word. The man appears to be their contemporary, though his features are indistinct no matter how they try to focus. Ben narrows his eyes.

"What are you?"

"A Force Wielder," the Father answers, simply. "Like you." Ben continues to glare.

"Where is this place?" asks Rey, again. She doesn't recognize it, yet it seems familiar, something out of a dream.

"It is called Mortis."

They wait but the Father does not explain further. Ben scours his memories for the word, scowling at secrets he feels entitled to. Rey waves her hand in time with the wind.

"It feels . . ."

 _Real_. It reminds her of the island, yes, but also --

Ben sends her a sharp look as the pulse between them flares up briefly. The connection she's been working so hard to suppress.

"The pull of the planet is so strong," she murmurs. Ben lowers his eyes, and his shields, and reaches out to the core. He feels it, too. "Is that how we arrived here?"

The Father smiles. "I called you here."

"Why?"

Rey startles at the brusqueness in Ben's voice, but she wants to know, too. The Father waves his hand over the grass, mimicking Rey, but not mocking.

"The strength you feel, what do you think it is?"

"The Force?"

Ben presses his lips flat. Her guess is accurate, but naive. There is something more here, something deeper. His eyes narrow on their host's face, trying to get past the glamour. He carries many ghosts around with him. He believes he should know this one.

"Who are you?" he asks again in a low tone with an edge of reckless distress.

"Who are _you_?" the strange being counters.

Ben starts, affronted. None of the answers that flash through his mind feel appropriate, or even true. He chooses the one most likely to provoke.

"Supreme Leader of the First Order."

Unprovoked, the Father turns his attention to his other visitor.

"I'm Rey," she answers.

The Father nods and tilts his head back towards Ben, though his eyes remain on her. "Who is he?"

Ben huffs. Rey turns to look at him directly.

"Ben Solo," she says in a clear voice the wind seems to carry through him.

The Father looks back at Ben. "Who is she?"

"No one," Ben snarls, but his dark expression doesn't quite reach his eyes.

"Who are you?" asks the Father.

"A Jedi," Rey tells Ben, eyes bright and unafraid.

"Who are you?" asks the Father.

"I do not want to play games!" Ben roars and the skies darken in response. The wind picks up, swirling around all three figures, and the ground beneath them cracks to reveal the piercing orange of a lava core. The Father's eyes glitter with its reflection before a dark shadow briefly consumes him. Ben's eyes go wide at his rage's reflection that surrounds them and his hands curl into fists. Rey blinks up at the sky. It should be frightening, but she feels solace.

Slowly, light returns, pushing through the clouds as the shadows dissipate and the scenery settles back into the idyll of the meadow. The Father cocks his head, curious, and calm.

"What do you want?" he asks in a measured, conversational, tone.

Ben crosses his arms with a petulant glare. "I want to leave."

The Father turns to Rey. "Do you want to leave?"

"No."

"What do you want?"

Ben's eyes narrow in her direction. She jutts her chin. "I want to understand."

This place, this pull, is familiar. It knows her, welcomes her. She has questions and she's willing to respond to the ones posed of her if she gets answers in return. The Father's gaze is curious, and kind.

"Understand what?"

"Everything."

She answers easily, without hesitation. Around them the sky shifts. Not angrily, as it did for Ben, but the clouds fade to reveal the stars the daylight hides. It's as if the whole planet disappeared and they stand in space surrounded by stars. She feels connected to each one.

The Father waves a hand and space dances. "No one can understand everything. Choose one thing."

This, however, is an impossible task. There is a certain premise, a certain promise, in his request. This strange otherworldly being she can't quite see no matter how she looks will answer. He _will have_ the answer. Her past, her future. Her power, her destiny. He can and will provide it. It is a heady realization she can have what she wants. But only once. Only one.

Questions have defined her for too long. Ben was right about one thing in the middle of everything he got wrong. She must design her own identity. She must be fearless.

Rey turns away from the Father, ignores the stars, and addresses her question to the Supreme Leader of the First Order. Or rather, to the man trapped within him. The man she loves.

"Why do you persist in tyranny?"

Ben shakes his head, hides behind disdain. "You sound-"

His voice cuts off as she steps closer, nodding, understanding. She sounds like his mother, uncle, father, and every other ghost that pulls at him relentlessly from the Light.

"Yes," she agrees, and steps closer again. He peers at her face, screwed up with something more than mere courage. She not only refuses to back down, she honestly wants to know. That is unlike his mother, or Luke, who loved and sometimes even listened but never, really, tried to understand.

"Why?" she asks, eyes open and heart wide.

The stars tremble along with his hands. He raises his eyes, drinks in the universe and speaks his truth.

"I want all this to make sense." He glances between the strange man, and the stranger girl, who are both, somehow, a part of his story. A part of him. "What is the purpose of power if you do not wield it? If you allow the small minded to hold you back, hold you down."

This feeling, his blood pulsing in time with the planet spinning too fast. It has always been there, driving him, tripping him, pressing down on his chest so he can't breathe. The stars around them blink in and out, exploding, expanding, devouring everything in their wake.

"I feel. . ."

 _So much power._ At his fingertips and beneath his eyelids. Waiting. Waiting for him.

"What am I meant to do with it? What is it for?"

Rey's eyes shine with compassion. _Weakness_. It will kill her, like it did everyone else. There has to be a reason. But she shakes her head.

The sky turns bright white with the force of a thousand suns. Ben closes his eyes against the glare, feels himself fall backwards onto the grass again, and when he blinks his eyes open, the meadow is returned, greener than ever with tiny pink flowers blooming, their simple beauty mocking him. He remembers his mother's eyes, sad, always sad, but hard and steadfast. She never had time for flowers.

"I watched her fail," he explains, his voice weary, his eyes wet. "Too many times." The disparity tears at him. "If everyone is talking no one listens."

The Father steps closer, into the light. His blue eyes sparkle. "What do you want them to hear?"

A long silent moment passes. The wind is still. Nothing moves, no one breathes.

He remembers an X-wing exploding. His mother throwing her arms over his head, deflecting the bits and pieces of burning metal away from them. Feelings hit him in waves. The pilot's terror as his body was cut in two and plummeted too fast to the ground. His mother's worry and sorrow. The confusion of everyone as they watched the remains of the fighter hit the dirt. The battles were meant to be over. He was five years old.

"I want the fighting to end."

Rey reaches toward him, tentative, afraid to break the spell. He watches as she places a hand on his arm, looks up to meet his gaze. His eyes are a storm.

"Why do you persist in hope?" he whispers, and the wind picks up, blows her hair away from her face.

The sandstorm raged for the fifth day. She'd had food and drink for three. Her stomach ached, her eyes were raw from watching, she had a headache from the noise. What if it never stopped? Would she starve before she lost her mind or die happy to be free of the tiny particles that dug into her skin no matter how far into the metal carcass of the ship she crawled? She was so tired, but equally scared if she fell asleep, she would never wake up.

"The alternative is death," she tells him, moving her hand to his cheek. His skin is warm. "What's the purpose of that?"

She feels tears fall onto her fingertips, reaches up to press her lips to his. The wind roars, the stars spin, and under their feet, flowers spring to life and spread out, reaching every crevice, following the path of the lava that flows beneath the surface, causing the ground to sparkle through the cracks.

Mortis sighs and the Father chuckles. The couple pull back, turning as one toward their host, the catalyst. The glamour fades, revealing a face that confirms Ben's suspicion.

"You're Anakin Skywalker."

"I was," the wraith answers, "and Darth Vader, too."

Ben flinches at the name. Rey threads her fingers through his in comfort.

The Force Wielders’ deaths threw the galaxy into chaos. Both sides, Dark and Light, tried to create order by exerting power over the other. The result was only more chaos, for light cannot exist without dark and dark has no purpose without light. Only when they accept both is the Force in balance. When the Father died, his story was hidden, and with it the lesson. He woke on Mortis alone, surrounded by only light and it could not be sustained.

"Don't fear the Dark, son. It made your mother strong." Ben frowns. "But never forget you're a child of the Light," Anakin continues. "If you want to end this conflict, you need both sides."

Their future is full of hardship, there are a thousand more steps of resilience and repentance before they can rejoin him here. But the key is to walk them together, and let the whole story be told.

Rey blinks at a truth finally falling into place. "I'm a child of the Dark," she says in a tone of wonder.

Anakin nods. "We need both sides."

Around them Mortis spins, flinging them back into the night. Rey and Ben wake abruptly, apart and alone. But their hearts beat as one with the Force, and they sit up together like twins despite the distance, and speak in one voice of a secret finally revealed.

" _I know."_


End file.
